1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multimedia data transfer system and in particular to system and method for associating existing terminals with personal computers allowing multimedia data to be transferred.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advent of IP telephony technologies, interconnection or cooperation of a telephone terminal and a personal computer has been one of important issues and various technical proposals have been made. For example, Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2000-115354 discloses an Internet phone handset device that is connected to the MIDI port and the sound I/O port of a sound card slotted into a personal computer.
In the case of a plurality of telephone terminals accommodated in a private branch exchange (PBX), a plurality of personal computers is connected to each other by a local-area network (LAN), which is connected to the PBX. Accordingly, a telephone terminal may be linked to a corresponding personal computer through the PBX and the LAN.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Unexamined publication No. 2002-199026 discloses a method of interconnecting IP telephone terminals and personal computers, which makes it possible to interconnect an IP telephone-terminal and a personal computer when calling by using a caller database containing caller names and identification information assigned to terminals of respective ones of the callers.
Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2003-46665 discloses an IP multifunction telephone system provided with a PBX having an address information management table so as to integrally manage IP multifunction telephones and linked personal computers.
However, in the above-described conventional methods and systems, when a telephone terminal is communicating with another telephone terminal on the other end of the line, it is necessary to take a complicated procedure to transfer data from a personal computer corresponding to the telephone terminal to another personal computer corresponding to the other telephone terminal. For example, it is necessary to obtain the IP address, domain name, telephone number and mail address of the other personal computer before starting up a multimedia application for transferring multimedia data such as sound, image, text and/or video data. Accordingly, timely providing or exchanging information cannot be achieved.